Pittsburgh football head coach Pat Narduzzi offered some comments on Michigan State, the Big Ten, and former assistant Mark Whipple that didn’t make sense.
You expect college football fans to be somewhat irrational. The word is short for the word fanatic after all. However, you don’t expect coaches to lose touch with reality.
Yet, as Pittsburgh football head coach Pat Narduzzi spoke on a local podcast this week, the Panthers head coach was saying things you might hear from a fan.
The first thing strange thing Narduzzi said was about Michigan State. Even though the Spartans didn’t have their own Heisman contender Kenneth Walker, Narduzzi said if Kenny Pickett had played, the Panthers would have won the Peach Bowl.
“He’s a 21-point difference,” Narduzzi said of Pickett on the podcast Bazzy’s Black and Gold Banter. “Michigan State gets their butt kicked in.”
He also didn’t stop there, going on to say: “We talk about Big Ten and SEC and ACC. That was one of the best Big Ten teams last year, then let’s go to the Big Ten and win it every year. So I don’t want to hear about this Big Ten dominance and SEC dominance. ”
Bazzy's Black & Gold Banter Episode 38 https://t.co/9GGDJl6T34
— Shults Ford (@ShultsFord) July 20, 2022
Michigan State was one of the Big Ten’s best teams in 2021, but the Spartans weren’t even the Big Ten champion and finished third in the Big Ten East.
Ohio State blew out the Spartans 56-7 and Michigan ended up winning the Big Ten championship after beating the Buckeyes, although the Spartans did beat Michigan too.
The fact that Narduzzi is saying Pittsburgh could win the Big Ten based on the fact that it beat the league’s third-place team, without its best player, is something you’d expect a fan to say, not its head coach.
However, the strange comments from Narduzzi didn’t stop there as he also took the chance to hammer former offensive coordinator Mark Whipple who left for Nebraska.
Narduzzi criticized the offensive coordinator who helped lead the Panthers to an ACC championship victory by 24 points by saying he was “stubborn” and didn’t want to run the ball.
The Pittsburgh football head coach seemed to go into full-fan mode as he said the Panthers threw the ball about “85 percent of the time last season” when statistics produced by the Omaha World-Herald reveal the Panthers ran the ball on 56 percent of their plays in 2021.
This isn’t the first time Narduzzi has put his foot in his mouth this summer either, as he was highly critical of Jordan Addison and USC over the star receivers’ transfer out West.
Yet, this latest rant just makes Narduzzi sound bitter because Michigan State hired Mel Tucker over him and his offensive coordinator left for another program in the Big Ten, one that was fresh off a three-win season as opposed to a conference title.
That’s understandable, but come on coach, keep the fan-style rantings to yourself.